Securing his release",

My dad was physically improving to the point that they released him to a transitional care Facility. In between planning the move and whatever, I was in touch with doctors, nurses, and case workers. The case workers were the big problem because my dad appeared to them to be almost completely unable to take care of himself. They were convincing me of this as well. His memory was not improving and we were having a hard time knowing if some of what he would tell us was real or imagined. some days he would be totally lucid and on others, he did not seems to know where he was, where he lived, or where he was moving to.

Case in point. I would have to constantly remind him that he had agreed to move to Phoenix and he would talk like he already was here, or thought I was in Seattle. At one point he called me up and said that his boss had called him and informed him that he was really needed and when could he start work. I said to him "you know you are moving to Phoenix Right?", he said "yes, but I don't care what the drive will be I still have my job." uhm... OK.... I said "that is going to be a problem, your work is 1600 miles from your new apartment". "WHAT!!" he said. there was a long pause and then he said (in a resigned voice) "well... you know more about these things than I do." This kind of exchange would happen a lot in the days before I went back to Seattle.

My Father did not have much respect for his boss. he called him many not politically correct things. His nickname for him was "simple". His complaints about his boss would fill a book, so we will skip it. I will say that in reality his boss was just using him and did not have any compassion for his health or mental state (as you will see later).

There was also the matter of a safety deposit box, what was in it, and how to get it. He had a friend up there that ran a kind of a club where they would drive fire trucks in parades, weddings, birthday parties and static displays. The operation was run very much like a real fire department, including how they learned to drive and how things were scheduled and routes were planned. The shop also has about 13 fire trucks packed in to a space that would normally hold about 5. It is impressive to see, there is even a fire truck hanging from the ceiling.

The owner has some equipment that belonged to my dad and the other key to the safety deposit box. This initiated several calls to him wherein he attempted to convince me that my dad had more than one storage unit (he did not), he was also concerned that the lathe and drill press and other metal working tools that my dad had stored there for 20 years would not be left with him as had been agreed to by him and my dad. I assured him that they could stay as the cost to move them was too high and I had no place to use them.

We are getting close to when I will be going back up there and there are conference calls between me, my sister, the case workers and my dad, Regarding where he will be living the conditions therein, who he will be living with, do we have certain special equipment, what type of flooring is in the house... (wait what!). Yes they were concerned that my dad would trip, fall, and break his hip if he walked from tile to carpet or vice-versa. One wrongly answered question and we might not have been able to secure his release. There was the other problem that he was reluctant to do exercises that would get his strength back. His response to my prodding him to cooperate with the nurses and such was "hey! I'm on vacation." (nice!) I would remind him if he did not get his strength back he'd have to "go on the cart". He didn't get the reference. http://youtu.be/grbSQ6O6kbs

So the plan was that I would go up to Seattle on 12-7-2012 and my sister would be going up on a separate flight. Since I had been out of work since July 2012 I was needing to fly on the cheap. This meant a layover... I HATE LAYOVERS! and this one would be extra special.

 Next Post:

"shades of 9-11", or "how to keep from freaking out on a plane, when sitting next to several Arabic guys between the ages of 20 to 30"